Of Wolf and Man
by Shutterbug5269
Summary: Castle has a different secret than Andrew Marlowe intended. Story posted for Castleficpromoter's Halloween Bash 2019
1. Prologue

**Chapter One  
****Prologue**

* * *

"_Bright is the moon, high in starlight  
Chill in the air cold as steel tonight  
We shift, call of the wild,  
Fear in your eyes  
It's later than you realized"  
_Metallica: "Of Wolf and Man"

* * *

Kate Beckett knocked hesitantly on Richard Castle's door. He had disappeared from the precinct like a scalded cat the night before with a less-than-hopeful "good night" instead of his usual _"until tomorrow"_ that had set her on edge.

Though the idea of a full day at her desk without him staring creepily while she filled out her post-arrest paperwork had sounded ideal at first, his odd, behavior the day before and sudden, unexplained departure had eaten at her the entire shift. She knew things were still fragile between them since she'd returned from her three-month, self-imposed exile after her shooting, but his behavior the past few days had been strangely erratic, even before he'd made his departure.

Though she knew rationally, there was no scientific basis for "full moon fever" she couldn't shake the old superstition out of hand. The day he'd been gone had, in fact, coincided with a full moon.

As put off as she was by his creepily staring at her whilst she filled out her DD fives after an arrest, her continuing therapy had her analyzing her feelings more than she used to. She may have her own problems, but it was becoming clear that something was up with her partner. Something she hadn't picked up on when she first came back. Maybe she didn't always show it as much as even she believed she should, but she cared about him, she just wasn't ready to face just how deep that went yet.

The door swung open just as Kate was about to retreat and she was rather taken aback to be standing face to face with Alexis instead of her father. Though the high school senior tried gamely to summon the disdain she had been carrying around since her father's return to the precinct, it was clear that something _other_ than Kate Beckett at their door was bothering the young woman. Her skin was even paler than usual, her eyes were bloodshot and from the bags under them it was clear she hadn't slept well - if at all - recently.

Kate opened her mouth to ask after Castle but was cut off by a muffled howling like that of a wounded animal followed by thumping and banging from inside the loft. Her right hand instinctively parted her red trench coat and came to rest on her police issue Glock. She was about to push her way inside, but Alexis stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

"Dad isn't feeling well," she offered dully, "we're watching horror movies in the office with the home theater on. Dad really likes the Underworld series."

"_Of course he does," _Kate thought to herself, unable to help the sharp pang of jealousy. _"Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather, what's not to love?"_

No sooner had the thought occurred to her, Kate remembered she was being watched by his teenage daughter and was suddenly mortified.

"Uhm…" she stammered. "Let him know I stopped by and that I hope he feels better soon."

"Uh… yeah," Alexis replied, apparently still distracted by the noises emmanating from the loft. "I need to get back, I was getting snacks from the kitchen."

Under normal circumstances, Kate would have been able to pick up on Alexis' clearly unconvincing body language, but between her own therapy session earlier that afternoon and her more recent mortification, she missed it. By the time she collected herself, the door had swung closed, cutting her off from further comment.

* * *

Alexis leaned heavily on the closed door, until the nightmare-fuel howling from behind the heavily reinforced security door of the safe room began again in earnest, followed swiftly by another round of pounding and the shrieking of claws on metal.

Not for the first time in the last two years, Alexis Castle prayed to whatever deity she could think of that her father wouldn't injure himself too badly before the sun came up and the beast finally released him.

It was always worse on the full moon.

* * *

_***Author's note* I had toyed with the idea of going much darker with this, but in the end decided not to. I still have Cerberus Spectre to finish and I want to see how much of the third installment "The Spectre of War" I can get written before the winter ficathon starts.**_


	2. The Hunter and the Hunted

**Chapter Two  
****The Hunter and the Hunted**

* * *

"_Off through the new day's mist I run  
Out from the new day's mist I have come  
We shift, pulsing with the earth  
Company we keep  
Roaming the land while you sleep*  
_Metallica: Of Wolf and Man_  
_

* * *

With more than a little trepidation, Richard Castle worked his way through security at the Twelfth Precinct with two travel- mugs of coffee in hand. Alexis had told him about Kate's visit the other night while he was "indisposed", which left him with a familiar ache every time his affliction raised its head. The coming full moon had left him apprehensive the whole day and his abrupt departure likely raised far too many questions, or Kate would not have turned up at his door that night.

Not for the first time in the last two years, he wished he'd never met Ellie Monroe, who was as oblivious to what she was carrying around as he had been until that first full moon. He'd spent the rest of that year struggling with instincts he could barely control. His overly possessive reaction to Kate's burgeoning relationship with Demming had surprised even him, especially after the first time the beast had taken over. He'd awakened in the parking garage half naked with no idea how he'd come to be there, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. Thankfully his travel bag from the last book tour had still been in the car.

Breaking Kate's heart just before he'd left that summer had torn him in two, but it had to be done. Where he was going, Kate couldn't follow - not until he'd found some semblance of control, which even now was a tenuous thing. After two years of effort and careful experimentation with silver, he could resist the change for the most part. Once it got dark on the full moon, however all bets were off and any semblance of control vanished like vapor.

Kate shot him a bemused smirk when he handed over her grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla, presented with exaggerated flourish.

"Feeling better?" she asked, her eyes closing in spite of herself as she took her first sip of coffee.

"Yes, thank you," Castle replied. "Alexis told me you'd stopped by."

"Did she, now?" Kate noted.

"Yeah, she also told me that you attempted to defend my honor from the Lycans," he quipped, "I'm very touched."

"You couldn't handle the sight of me in skin tight leather," Kate shot back playfully, tossing a stack of post-its at him as he settled into his chair at her desk.

With their usual banter restored, Kate brought him up to speed on their current case. Though a man cut in half by a sword-wielding costumed superhero tugged at the comic book lover in his soul, he breathed a sigh of relief that their victim hadn't been torn apart by six inch claws.

Alexis had barely finished closing all of the locks the other night when the change took him. Eight million people lived in New York City, it didn't take a mystery writer to come up with the nightmare scenario he dreaded should he ever fail to enter contanment.

* * *

Not long after Castle had made his entrance to the precinct, Former Detective Sgt. Gerald Rivers filed his transfer paperwork with the desk sergeant. He had spent the better part of twenty years in the NYPD, having bounced between Major Crimes, Homicide and Special Victims. Much like Detective Beckett, he had a penchant for solving the "weird ones", though his brand of weird had leaned more into the occult side of things.

None of the captains he had served under had ever been able to comprehend his affinity for negotiating some of the more… esoteric ethnic religious groups and cults that existed in the city and most of them didn't care as long as he'd solved his cases.

His non-regulation shoulder-length white hair bound into a neat pony tail, his closely cropped beard along and the angry red scar bisected by his left eye made him look the part of the aging cop serving out his last year on the force.

Nobody suspected how old he really was and he preferred it that way.

Though his approaching retirement from the NYPD was in fact genuine, he could have finished his thirty anywhere, he had transferred to the open position of property clerk at the Twelfth for a reason. One that rarely cropped up in the modern world.

The sharp rise in animal attacks in Central Park and Northern New Jersey over the past two years, though generally blamed on feral dogs were far too violent for anything natural. The tracks and blood trail around them, the violence with which they were torn apart and the fact that only their livers were missing pointed to one thing: a werewolf.

Due to the various purges of the Middle Ages and the last two world wars, full lycanthropy cases had been reduced to a steadily shrinking number of asymptomatic carriers that rarely developed beyond an overabundance of body hair or an extreme craving for red meat. The modern world was no longer prepared for the wholesale slaughter a werewolf could dish out once this one graduated to killing humans, which gave him a very narrow window to find it and kill it.

For the first time in over a century, he was back on the path.

* * *

_****Author's note** For those of you who are curious, I will try to post on Monday depending on my work schedule. I have ch 3 mostly written and I'm working on ch 4. I'm not planning on this being very long as I have a couple of stories to finish.**_


	3. Of Wolf and Tiger

**Chapter Three  
Of Wolf and Tiger**

* * *

_"I feel a change, back to a better day  
Shape shift: hair stands on the back of my neck  
Shape shift: in wildness is the preservation of the world  
So seek the wolf in thyself!"  
_Metallica: Of Wolf and Man

* * *

Kate gradually stirred to consciousness. Though slightly groggy, she felt strangely content, like the world was out there far away somewhere. When she rolled over, the realization dawned upon her that she wasn't alone on the small mattress she found herself lying upon. As her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she caught sight of Castle asleep next to her and took note that her left arm was underneath his head and her right hand lay draped across his chest.

Her content, sleep**-**addled smile held for only a fraction of a second before the realization dawned that she had no idea where they were or how they had come to be there. Panic began to set in, but she held it at bay with the deep breathing exercises Dr. Burke had taught her. As her self control slowly reasserted itself, she propped herself up to assess her surroundings. The sharp movement as she sat up caused Castle to stir, but he seemed far groggier than she had been.

"Hmmm," Castle groaned trying to roll over. "Don't get up yet. Stay in bed."

"Castle!" Kate hissed,

Castle opened his right eye, apparently noting her presence for the first time.

"Kate," he slurred, his eyes suddenly wide, **as** though waking from a bad dream. "you shouldn't be here."

"Castle!" she hissed more sharply this time.

"What?" He replied dully, feeling sluggish, more than he should be. The tranquilizer Alexis had used on him the night before should not be effecting him this way. The dosage was carefully measured with just the right amount of silver to hold back the change. It shouldn't have worn off by now. If he was back in the safe room and Beckett was there, something was wrong.

"Did you do this?" Kate asked. Their relationship had been slightly off-kilter for weeks, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why, his monthly disappearances notwithstanding. She doubted he would resort to drugging her and locking them both in a room, however no sooner had the question left her mouth. Lanie might joke about such a thing but neither she, nor anyone else who knew her well had the stones to actually go through with it, her dad included.

"What?" He asked again, more alert but still visibly muddled.

"Stop asking me that and wake up," Kate snapped, then instantly regretted it. He seemed more freaked out than she was about their current predicament and snapping at him wasn't going to get them out of it. "Sorry."

"I don't… something isn't right…" Castle mumbled struggling to move his left arm to sit up, but didn't get far before noticing the chain binding his left wrist to hers. "We're handcuffed… kinky."

"Castle," Kate hissed, "it's not funny."

"I didn't say funny, I said kinky," Castle snapped back, a fraction harsher than he'd intended, "and I didn't cuff us together."

"You think _I_ cuffed us?" Kate shot back.

"Well, they certainly _look_ like police**-**issue cuffs," Castle couldn't help quipping with a nod toward the handcuffs joining their wrists. Her scent was even more keenly in his nostrils than usual. Senses that sharp only came to the fore when the change was coming. He knew the signs instinctively enough by now to be concerned. It shouldn't be happening now, the full moon was days ago. He'd spent that night locked safely away, he'd taken his silver supplements every night since, in spite of the pain they caused. Something was seriously wrong.

"Somebody else did this to us then," Kate added as she moved to sit up, pulling him with her. The cuffs made it difficult to maneuver their arms into a comfortable position between them while they took in the dark empty void of a room they found themselves in.

"You recognize this place?" Kate asked.

"No," Castle replied, though it reminded him far too much of his 'safe room' in the loft for his comfort level. "But if I were writing this place into a book, nothing good would happen here."

"My watch is missing." Kate noted after her hand had drifted to where it should have been on her wrist which set Castle to searching his own person.

"Mine too," he added, "and my wallet."

"So is my badge and my gun," Kate noted after a more careful search, breathing a sigh of relief to find her mother's ring still hung from its chain around her neck, but she'd take whatever comfort was available at this point.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Kate asked, taking note of her partner's heightened anxiety level.

"I…" Castle began, but he drew a blank. "I'm not sure, it's all still a blur."

"Yeah, me too," Kate agreed. "I think we were drugged."

"Not the good kind, either." Castle noted. His heightened senses had him on edge, warning him of danger nearby. He knew from experience those senses would eventually provoke a very specific, predictable response, which he was struggling to keep at bay. Something he couldn't put his finger on was hampering his efforts though. Time was not on his side.

"Okay, lift my top," Kate stated, turning her back to him.

"I think you might still be under the influence," Castle noted, fumbling to keep his tone light, even though he was barely holding it together. The last thing he wanted was to drag Beckett down into panic attack territory with him.

"Castle, not like that," Kate admonished. "Just check my back, something hurts."

Without further comment, Castle lifted her shirt to see a small red mark on her lower back, just above the waistband of her jeans. He could hear the blood pulsing through her veins, her heart pounding in her chest, the scent of cherries in her hair along with something unnatural just below her skin near the injection site. A scent that did not belong to Kate Beckett.

"There's definitely a needle mark," he noted, still struggling to keep his tone even.

"That settles it," Kate sighed. "We were drugged."

"Looks like the work of a pygmy with a blowgun," Castle offered, trying for deadpan humor as he dropped her shirt back into place.

Kate smirked, but mostly for his benefit. They'd been in worse situations than this and she couldn't fathom what was unnerving him so badly this time.

"All right, Castle," she replied, trying to be as reassuring as possible. "I want you to think very hard. What's the last thing you remember from this morning?"

"I was with you," he replied after taking a deep breath. "We were, uh… someplace seedy. One of those hotels that rent rooms by the hour."

"Knock it off, Castle," she shushed, "this is serious."

"It's where we were," he choked out, he hadn't been going for humor, but was glad at least she was keeping her cool. He was well aware that if the worst occurred, that might not last. Even after two years of observation and research, he wasn't certain how much of… _him_ was left when the beast took over. "You called me and you asked me to meet you there."

"Oh, right," Kate muttered as a fragment of memory slotted into place. "I did, then I took you up to the room and then we …"

"And then we …" Castle picked up**,** their shared brain thing bringing him a small amount of comfort, even in his current predicament."

"Dead body!" Kate exclaimed as the image coalesced in her mind, replacing the rather filthy fantasy that her subconscious was leading her toward and thankful her turtleneck hid the blush rising up her neck. "We went to go see a dead body! Then we called the post office about that postal code fragment you found and they gave us the address."

For a brief moment, they stared at each other, both lost in thought, even as scattered as Castle's concentration was, the "aha!" moment still hit them both at the same time.

"The house in Queens!" they blurted out at the same time and all of a sudden the floodgates of memory were opened.

"Last thing I remember is the old woman in the cage," Castle added.

"Yeah, me too," Kate agreed.

"What the hell is going on?" Castle hissed, not realizing he'd said it out loud.

"Whatever this room was originally built for," Kate suggested, "there has to be a light switch somewhere. Be easier to find a way out if we can see where we are."

Castle didn't respond, concealing the fact that he could see - not to mention smell - a lot better than he was letting on. He just shrugged and allowed her to lead them on a circuitous route as she felt her way along the wall to a light switch and flipped it on.

"Oh," Castle noted, squinting in the sudden light. "I think I liked this place better in the dark."

"The door is sealed, and it's even heavier than the one in my apartment," Kate noted sullenly after a few sharp tugs on the handle. "There's no way we're getting this open from in here."

"The walls are cinder block," Castle noted, the similarity to the heavily reinforced basement of his house in the Hamptons gave him little comfort. If the room they were in was reinforced to the same parameters, he doubted even the beast would be able to claw or batter its way out and the idea of what might happen to Beckett if she was locked in here alone with him did not bear thinking about.

Eventually, however, that line of reasoning led him to wonder what their captors actually used the room for as the two of them walked slowly back to where they'd started.

"What do you suppose is in that big freezer?" Kate asked, noting the only other object in the otherwise empty space.

"You think it's the old woman?" Castle offered, again trying (and failing) to apply his usual brand of humor to the situation. "That we're in some psycho's lair, like in Saw?

"Castle, stop speculating," Kate hissed, though secretly she drew comfort from the fact that he'd made the attempt. "It's not helping."

"Oh, c'mon," Castle cajoled, as much for his own benefit, drawing comfort from her expression as she rolled her eyes at his wild theory. "An old lady in a cage, the two of us drugged and cuffed together in this creepy room? Where was I supposed to go with that?"

"For a start," Beckett shot back to bring him back on point, "You could help me find a way to get the hell out of here before whomever left us here comes back."

* * *

After several minutes of effort and half-hearted attempts at banter, the two of them managed to locate a hatch in the room's high ceiling, right above the mattress they had awakened upon. It was too high to reach unassisted, but the only object other than the mattress, -the freezer in the corner of the room- was too heavy to move. So, with Kate sitting awkwardly upon it to allow him the free use of both hands, Castle began trying to crack the combination.

In his hyperaware state, he was able to hear the tumblers clearly enough, but every time one clicked, it sounded so loud in his ears that his fingers involuntarily twitched, sending him back to the start. Several failed attempts later Kate began to lose patience.

"For God's sake Castle, how much longer are you going to keep doing this?" she **s**napped and instantly regretted it when she saw his shoulders slump and his whole body seemed to crumple in on itself in defeat.

"Ugh, I almost had it," Castle sighed.

"Take a break Castle, relax, you're more wound up than I am," Kate offered comfortingly. "Can I have my hand back for a sec?"

Castle let go of the lock and dropped his hand. For the next few minutes, they sat awkwardly, not sure where to go from there, getting the freezer under the ceiling hatch had been the crux of their escape plan. If they couldn't lighten it enough to move it, they were stuck and she knew it. She hated not having options, but she realized that in this situation it was she who wasn't helping, by shutting down his coping mechanisms or picking at him when he was trying to help.

"So you got a story to explain all of this?" Kate asked, trying to distract him a little and lay out an olive branch of sorts. "Anything reassuring?"

"Old lady in a cage, the two of us cuffed together in a dark, very escape resistant basement?" Castle replied. "I don't think that's a story you want to hear."

"Why not?" Kate asked.

"These elements are more King's or Barker's territory than mine," Castle replied darkly, "I can't think of any scenario where it ends well, not even a Disney version."

"Yeah," Kate replied, sounding a little defeated herself, "I was afraid of that."

The two of them regarded each other for several minutes of semi comfortable, companionable silence before Kate shook off her reverie and shifted her hand closer to Castle's.

"Hundred and first time's the charm?" Kate offered with a smile, which he returned before going back to the lock. After three more failed attempts his temper flared for a split second. He yanked sharply at the lock in frustration and felt the hasp of the lock separate under his palm.

Thankful that his hand had obscured both the lock and the sound of it breaking from Kate while he squeezed his eyes shut and balled his fists fighting for control once again. A fight he knew he was destined to lose. Something in what they'd been drugged with was hampering his ability to hold back the change. He had to get Kate out of this room and as far away from him as possible… fast.

"I did it!" He stated emphatically, tossing the lock away, taking comfort in the smile blooming on Kate's face. He knew it might be the last time she regarded him with anything but disgust or fear before the night was out.

"You did it!" Kate shouted, looking like she might actually hug him, which she awkwardly avoided at the last second. With the moment past, they stood turned to regard the freezer, but neither of them were in a hurry to open it.

"How bad can it be?" Kate asked, "I mean, we've seen dead bodies before, right?"

Castle nodded in agreement before they opened the freezer but both of them stopped short when its contents were revealed, filled to the brim with chains and handcuffs of varying lengths and thicknesses. Even more gruesome were the assortment of sharp looking, knives and hand saws strapped to the lid, nearly all encrusted with dried blood.

"Castle," Kate whispered hoarsely, "your crazed, sadistic, psycho killer theory might not be far off after all."

"Let's get," Castle began, stopping short of referring only to Kate, "the hell out of here."

No sooner had the words passed through Castle's lips and Kate nodded her ascent, a square door at the far end of the room opened setting Castle's hyperactive senses on fire before a low growl came from the opening.

Without skipping a beat, Castle grabbed the end of the freezer, forcing it up onto one end with a mighty heave. Before Kate could say a word or react at all, he grabbed the end of the bracelet and snapped the chain of the handcuffs then hoisted her up on top of it.

"Castle, what are you…?" Kate began but was cut off.

"Go, Kate… climb!" Castle snarled, his voice deepened, becoming more unrecognizable with every syllable. "I… I can't… argh… stop what's coming anymore!"

Kate scrambled upward into the rafters surrounding the ceiling hatch, looked down and her eyes widened in terror as the change gripped Castle. He tore at his clothes, ripping his shirt and jacket to shreds as the very shape of his body shifted from the writer she knew. His head and face narrowed, taking on a more canine appearance, his body covered in coarse fur and his arms and legs shifted until he was barely bipedal.

When the change was complete, Castle's werewolf form rippled with muscle, hands and feet ending in six inch claws, his wolven muzzle bristled with sharp, bone-crushing canine teeth, as he let loose a nightmare fueling howl then turned toward the opening in the wall, the hair on his neck bristled as he snarled at whatever was on the other side.

Half a heartbeat later a Bengal tiger emerged from the opening, the massive cat roared as it bounded toward the growling beast that had just a moment ago been her partner. The werewolf snarled and snapped at the tiger as the two beasts circled each other warily before the tiger attacked, raking Castle with a swipe of its one of its massive paws that sent the werewolf sprawling.

The werewolf howled in pain and rage before he rebounded and leaped at the tiger, raking the big cat with his claws, but a swipe from the tiger's left forepaw sent him sprawling. He rebounded again, wheeled about and sprang at the tiger once again, managing to leave a deep bloody gash along the tiger's flank but was savaged again by the larger feline's own claws in response.

* * *

"Detective Beckett!" an unfamiliar voice shouted from just above her, which pulled her senses back into the moment. "Take my hand!"

The tiger was silenced mid-roar by the sound of snapping and crushing bone and seconds later an even louder nightmare howl reverberated from below Kate as the stranger in a police uniform jacket pulled her up through the hatch. Before the officer (Sgt. Rivers according to his name plate and chevrons) could slam it shut, the werewolf bounded out clumsily, clearly wounded, snarling menacingly at him.

In a blur, Rivers turned, drew a pistol from under his jacket, but before he could fire, it slumped over whining like an injured puppy as it dragged itself toward Kate, slowly, painfully shifting back to human form as he went, before collapsing in a bloody heap at her feet. Rivers took a beat too long deciding what to do, but after a glare from Beckett (which reminded him far too much of Yennifer back in the day) he holstered his weapon and keyed the mic on his police radio.

"Dispatch, Ten William thirty six," he stated clearly, "Officer needs assistance,  
817 Fincher Drive. Suspects in custody. Civilian down. I need unis and a bus at my location."

"Ten William thirty six, dispatch," the operator replied, "uniforms and EMS responding, code three."

Kate couldn't help but stare at her partner, horror slowly giving way to compassion over his grievous injuries. Any questions she had would have to wait. First they had to get Castle to the hospital alive.

* * *

_****Author's note** Okay, first get any images of Scott Speedman out of your heads. Castle fully becomes a barely bipedal Pleistocene dire wolf, not the human like hybrid from Underworld. Mmkay?**_

_**Yes, it's a cliffy… this was as far as I got pre writing wise. I'm working on a bridge here. Still haven't decided on who's perspective to roll with next chapter. I would have posted it last week, but I wasn't feeling well.**_


	4. Aftermath

**Chapter Four  
Aftermath**

* * *

"_I can't remember anything,  
Can't tell if this is truth or dream,  
Deep down inside, I feel the scream,  
The terrible silence stops me there."_  
Metallica: One

* * *

After what seemed to be an eternity of darkness, Richard Castle's senses slowly began reporting in. He could hear distant voices beyond the periphery of the hazy shroud where his perception ended.

"…_This has to be the strangest blood panel I've ever seen…"_

"…_don't know how he managed to kill the tiger…"_

"…_with his injuries he should be dead…"_

"…_is that organ regeneration?"_

"…_Dad, please wake up…"_

"…_Castle…"_

The last two voices definitely caught his drug-addled attention. He tried to open his eyes, but they were so… heavy. Kate's voice brought back a single memory. The only thing he could recall. Her eyes locked on his, wide with terror. The image repeated over and over in his mind but before he could process any further sensations, a bright light flashed in one eye, followed by indistinct voices before his senses dimmed and darkness descended upon him once more.

* * *

**Meanwhile**

Sgt. Rivers had been busy during the three days Richard Castle had been kept sedated in observation. Accessing the Castle loft had been absurdly easy, all things considered. Though the doorman, Eduardo, had been resistant at first, the Axxi sign rendered him compliant enough. A cursory search of the loft using his enhanced senses quickly revealed the safe room.

"_Not bad,"_ he thought to himself, _"he's trying harder to keep the symptoms in check than I anticipated."_

It didn't take long for him to discover the unmarked pill container in the medicine cabinet.

"Silver," he thought again, not realizing he was speaking out loud. "Only a couple of missing components and he'd be on the right track."

Upon returning to his own well-appointed Manhattan walk-up he mulled over his options. Wolfsbane, among some of the other components needed for a more comprehensive supplement for the more extreme lycanthropy symptoms would be easy enough to find at any one of several apothecary shops dotted across Manhattan that serviced the vondun community. He would need access to a better setup than the rudimentary alchemy lab in his kitchen to come up with a more permanent cure, however. He knew a few people who owed him some favors and was certain once he had everything he needed, a place to work would be easy enough to come by.

Though the cure for lycanthropy might be difficult to synthesize, especially in the modern age, it was clear from Richard Castle's home that he was a good man with people who loved him. He might be worth the extra effort.

Though he was a talented functioning alchemist in his own right, he was nowhere near as skilled as Yen was, and like every time his mind wandered in this direction in the last century, he wished she was still with him. Since the two of them had retired to their vineyard and disappeared from history, she'd survived three purges by the Catholic Church and another by the Spanish Inquisition only to be killed by a stray artillery shell at the height of the First World War when she'd insisted on going to Paris. For the thousandth time since that day he wished that just once he'd been able to tell her "no" and stood his ground.

He hoped that Detective Beckett understood the sacrifices Richard Castle had made for her safety and that of every human being he encountered. He'd only seen them together for a few moments, but it was clear that there was something there and she was fighting it. He knew all too well what it was like to look back on his life and wonder "if only".

His hand drifted to the silver sword where it hung in the armoire next to its steel companion, fingers brushing along the runes on the blade _"Dubhenn haern am gladeal, mor'h am aiesin" _which translated loosely to "The flash that cuts through the darkness. The light that breaks the night."

Though his calling had long ago become obsolete, his order all but extinct since the second conjunction of the spheres, he didn't regret his decision to stop taking the mutagens and eventually pass into the beyond, but he figured he had enough in him for one last crusade.

* * *

_****Author's note** Sorry folks, I meant to get this out on Halloween, but the massive storm that tore through my area that night sending Oneida and Herkimer counties into States of emergency stymied my writing plans.**_


End file.
